Posts Tagged ‘Ring Nebula’
IC Eye
Credit: NASA/ESA and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA
Like many planetary nebula we’ve looked at, like the Ring Nebula, the Retina Nebula shows halves that match. Scientists call this symmetry. If we were to cut the image of the nebula in half, they would almost mirror each other. So why is the Retina Nebula different than the Ring Nebula and other planetary nebula that are circular in shape? If we could hop in our starship and fly around IC 4406, we’d find that we are looking at the nebula from the side. Imagine looking at a donut from the top. That would be the view of a circular nebula. But look at it from the side and that’s how the Retina Nebula seems to us standing on Earth. This side view, shown to us by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, offers astronomers a different view and gives them more ideas on the last stages of this dying star.
Ring around the eye
Credit: The Hubble Heritage Team (AURA/STScI/NASA)
One of the most famous of all planetary nebula, the Ring Nebula (M57) glows in our summer skies. This “eye in the sky” is the remains of another sun-like star. The central star has blown off layers of gas and dust to form a bubble in space. Clumps of dark material can be seen near the edges while the dying central star can be seen floating in the bluish hot gas. The image is close to the actual color of the nebula. The blue area represents hot gas while areas farther out become cooler and redder. This shows how the gas in the bubble glows because of ultraviolet radiation from the doomed central star. The surface temperature of the star is a whopping 216,000 degrees Fahrenheit (120,000 Celsius). Our Sun’s surface temperature is about 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit (6,000 Celsius).
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The ancient peoples saw pictures in the sky. From those patterns in the heavens, ancient storytellers created legends about heroes, maidens, dragons, bears, centaurs, dogs and mythical creatures…Read More
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